A Hostile State by Adrian Magson (reading eggs books txt) 📗

an attack was minimal. But then after their tactics in Lebanon, Cyprus and Frankfurt, I guessed they were plenty ready to deal with that eventuality, too.

I risked a glance in the mirror to check the size of the threat. I counted three heads up and a hand hanging out the passenger window holding what looked like a machine pistol. Not a great weapon to use at distances, especially from a moving firing platform against another vehicle, but useful for spraying at a target on the grounds that you were bound to get a hit eventually.

And one hit in the right place was all it would take.

I put on speed, the back of my neck feeling vulnerable. The car didn’t like it much, but hanging around wasn’t going to end well. I was wondering how they’d managed to be waiting at the right place and time, and ran a map in my head. We’d been on the road to Rambouillet, heading north-east towards Paris, and had hooked a left almost at random. So popping out behind us the way they did was either a stellar piece of guesswork on their part or the spotter back in Épernon had seen which route we’d taken out of town and called it in.

Instinct told me that guessing didn’t come into it; their insistence on trying to nail me had already shown they had reach and resources, which included man-power enough to post watchers and hitters wherever they needed them. Sending in a single man to make sure we were in place first would have been a logical move, allowing their hit team to stay back until they were needed, then move in the moment they had instructions.

Lindsay must have been having the same thoughts. ‘These are the people following you, aren’t they? Not the same as the other two.’

‘Forget them. They were following Chesnais. They’d been given a rough description and told where to find her. It was sloppy organization.’

‘So why come after me—?’ Then her eyes went wide as the realization hit her. ‘They thought I was Chesnais!’ She uttered another oath as she realized how close she had come to being a wrong target.

‘Can I have the gun?’

‘To do what?’ I glanced at her but she looked serious.

‘Please.’

I gave in. ‘In my backpack. A Beretta.’

She grabbed hold of my bag from the rear seat and hauled it over to the front. She took out the Beretta and checked the magazine. If she was frightened she did a great job of hiding it and seemed to be handling the gun with surprising ease.

‘Listen to me: the people behind us are different to the other two morons. They’re Russians – Moscow contractors like the men behind the previous hits. And, no I don’t know why they’re doing this.’

‘Callahan mentioned it but I wasn’t sure I really believed it … until now.’ She glanced to the rear. The Evoque had fallen back a way after hitting a dip in the surface and nearly going off the narrow road, but I knew it wouldn’t be long before they made up ground again.

‘And you agreed to this … having your locations known? Why?’

‘Because one, we need to know where the information is being intercepted, and two, I don’t like being used as target practice. This has to stop. We either plug the leak or I stop them coming after me.’

‘How do they manage to move so quickly?’

‘They have the resources. As soon as my location is picked up and passed on, they swing a team into position. In this case they must have had people in the area ready to go. Putting a man in the town as soon as they had the location was a clever move; it meant the hit team could hold back and wait for a call telling them which way we’d gone. Then they could set up an attempt outside of the town. Safer for them and allows them a way out afterwards.’

She looked at me, her mouth open. ‘You make it sound like a freaking board game. How can you be so calm?’

I couldn’t help but smile at her cross face. Even under the circumstances it was endearing. ‘I’ve tried panicking but it never works.’

We covered another mile in silence while the Evoque crept up on us. I wondered what their strategy was until I realized they were probably waiting until we got into the forest where they could take us without being seen.

‘So it’s really happening – there’s a leak inside Langley.’ She sounded shocked, as any insider would have done. A traitor inside the CIA was tantamount to sacrilege. Then she told me about someone having been at her comms desk and Callahan’s instructions to leave the details in full view.

‘Did they find anyone?’ I asked.

‘Not yet – at least, I don’t think so. It’s a busy place … people come and go all the time, and when you’re on the inside of the building you don’t think about CCTV apart from what’s on the outside.’

I knew what she meant. It was the concept of the middle ages: the bigger the fort the safer you were. And look how that worked out. Lindsay and her colleagues were going to have to come to grips with the idea that someone inside the CIA bubble was sending out information which threatened the life of a co-worker – even a non-attached person like me. The whole concept was not easily accepted or understood, especially in an organization which saw itself as the centre of the nation’s intelligence, and therefore invulnerable.

She huffed a bit and checked the position of the Evoque. It was still there but hanging back. The road stretched out for a good way in front of us but was too narrow to risk passing us. Big as it was, it still stood a chance of driving off the road by mistake.

They were waiting their chance to jump us.

‘Wouldn’t it have been easier for them to take us back in the